BRIGHT ASANTE APPIAH v. HUANG YUMIN & ANOTHER

The Court of Appeal (per Dennis Adjei, JA) considered an appeal from the High Court, Accra, arising out of a pedestrian’s injuries sustained on 27 March 2016 along the public street adjacent to the Defendants’ premises at the Light Industrial Area of Community 9, Tema. The trial court had found that the Defendants’ two large foreign-bred guard dogs exited when the 1st Defendant arrived and the gate was opened, growled, advanced, and chased the pedestrian, causing him to run, fall, and suffer serious injuries. A neighborhood eyewitness, Afia Animah (PW1), testified the dogs regularly escaped into the street whenever the gate was opened and that only one security man operated the gate at a time. On appeal, the Defendants challenged the weight of evidence, negligence finding, damages assessment, and burden allocation on special damages. The Court of Appeal affirmed the negligence finding and general damages but reduced special damages to the pleaded GH¢9,000, holding the unpleaded transport costs were improperly added. Merley Wood, JA, and Eric Baah, JA, concurred.